Star, Tide, and Talia
by Hiron Otsuki
Summary: In which there is a Sleeping Beauty who is more of a dead beauty, a King who is more of a necrophiliac-rapist than he is a King, and a Queen who is much, much Kinglier than your standard Queen.
1. Eternal Summer

Author's Note: This is based off of the original Giambattista Basile version of Sun, Moon, and Talia (Sleeping Beauty) which has always, always irritated me for several reasons:

First we have a rape upon an unconscious (dead) woman, who is later taken to wife _by her rapist_. Second, when he comes back, he has presumably come back to rape her _again_, working out his lust on an unconscious woman who cannot defend herself or say no. Third, the King's first wife, who is angry at the woman that her husband has been having an affair with, is portrayed as evil and vengeful. The rightfully angry Queen is shown to be in her anger jealous, spiteful, and greedy, and the fact that her husband is a philanderer gets completely lost in the fact that she's "jealous". And then she gets put to death because she tries to kill her husband's mistress. Why is the rapist rewarded with a beautiful wife, the (original) wronged wife killed, and Talia married to her rapist for life?

This is going to explore what goes on when that _doesn't_ happen, and when certain punishments are reversed.

* * *

Once upon a time there was a great Queen, and though her arm was strong and her mind quick, she had a bit of a flighty imagination when it came to odd imagery. So, when one day a candle tipped over on her desk and lit aflame a bundle of pale pink roses in a bleached beachwood vase, the wish she made must have sounded a little peculiar. "I wish I had a child as orange as flame, pink as the roses before me, and as dark as the wood of the flower-vase."

Still, whatever fairy had been listening granted her wish, and within three months her belly swelled with child, and six months after _that _the Queen delivered a female baby with hair as orange as candle-flame, lips as pink as the roses in the vase, and eyes as brown as the bleached wood that vase had been carved of, which is to say, not very dark at all.

Upon her birth her father the King sent for as many star-gazers and oracles as the wide, wide Kingdom had to offer, and for a wide Kingdom it had a lot.

Astrologers came from the north, fire-seers came from the south, and from the east and west came fortune tellers of nomad tribes that wandered the wide world and saw all that was to see there.

Amongst them was much bickering, for the methods of their seeing were varied and different, but after much debating and looking down alternate paths, all the astrologers and fortune-tellers had but one thing to tell the King and Queen: Upon her eighteenth birthday the young Princess would break the end of her ring finger in a horseback riding accident and fall down dead.

The King and Queen were sorrowful at first, but then realized that they _had _recourse. And so they banned _all_ horses from the Kingdom and were, for the next eighteen years, quite often seen to ride oxen and elk. They were often the laughingstock of all the nearby Kingdoms, but the King and Queen bore it gladly and well. They even named their daughter Talia, after the name of the trader who had sold them her entire breeding-stock of elk for a handsome, retireable price. The oxen were strong and fast, and the elk were tall and handsome, and the King and Queen were proud of their mounts, and of the mounts of the rest of the Kingdom, who often made do with what they could get, which often amounted to large dogs for children just learning to ride, and llamas, camels, and the increasingly rare giant mountain goat.

The Princess, however, did not. She was often seen to offer any newcomer into the Kingdom as much gold as they wanted if they would only bring her a horse in disguise. She had only seen horses in picture-books, and was therefore very curious about them. Alas, since everyone in the Kingdom had been warned not to bring in any kind, color, or breed of horse on pain of death or banishment, whichever was better, her requests were often met with a mumbled "I'm sorry Princess."

For the first seventeen years of her life, she never saw a horse that was not a drawing in a book. Though she grew up to be strong, beautiful, wise, and noble just like her mother, she was simply desperate to see a horse. No one had ever told her that it had been foretold that one day she would meet her death on the back of one.

And then one day, coincidentally on her eighteenth birthday, when Talia was passing the King's stable, an animal that did not look at all like a horse leaned out of its stall and spoke to her. It was such an odd animal, Talia thought she had never seen its like before. Long, spindly legs, a little nub of one horn next to one ear, a fat body, and a neck that was _entirely _too long to ever belong to an ox or elk. "I hear you have been seeking a horse," it whispered confidentially.

"Says who?" asked Talia.

"Says everyone," replied the animal.

"What's it to you?" the Princess countered.

"I happen to be one-sixteenth horse," it proclaimed. "On my mother's side."

Talia raised an eyebrow. "Oh, _really_," she drawled in a good imitation of a northern goat-trader.

"Really," said the one-sixteenth horse.

"What is the rest of you?" asked Talia.

"Mostly alpaca," said the horse. "And a little moose."

"Oh," said Talia.

"So," said the alpaca-moose-horse. "Would you like to ride me?" It looked out the open door of the stable wistfully. "No one else will. They say I'm too odd."

Talia looked the not-quite-horse over carefully. It _was _true; the animal had too-long legs that ended in splayed hooves, that fat body with a spine that stuck out like a mountain range, and a head that looked as though it had been a child's crude construction with clay.

"Okay," she said.

So it was that Princess Talia came to ride, and so it was that in a not-so distant corner of the riding-field, in full view of her parents, the alpaca-moose horse reared at a snake in the grass, and Talia fell off and broke the very end of the ring-finger on her right hand. Of course she fell right down, dead in the long grass of the field. At the terrible sight, and at the terrible knowledge that he himself had been the one to cause Talia's death and was therefore destined for death himself, the poor horse fled the field, jumping this way and that over hedges and fences, not stopping until he was three Kingdoms over.

Talia's grief-stricken parents, after much grieving and consulting with various seers, left their dear dead daughter in sitting repose upon a throne that had been hewn half out of the Queen's throne and half out of the King's throne, under a beautifully decorated canopy that the King himself had embroidered and the Queen had dyed with her tears. The Palace itself was in the middle of a dense wood, and very hard to get to if one did not know the way, so they only bricked up the doors of the lowest level and left forever the home which had brought them such pain and suffering, so that they might have other children in places far from the ill-fated one, and that those children might live without the shadow of their dear dead older sister hanging over them. They left forever, and for some time the Palace-mausoleum sat empty and abandoned, save for its one dead occupant whose body steadfastly refused to decay. Bougainvillea grew over the walls, along with the wild briar rose, and ivy grew on the more shadowed walls. The trees slowly crept closer, and everyone who had ever been to that place died.

Mice made their homes in various corners of the Palace, and sometimes a fox entered and wrought havoc upon the mice, but aside from them, but they were not human, and no one ever carried tales of the abandoned palace in the woods.

The next time someone entered the great hall on their own two feet was long after the original King and Queen had died long ago, as had their children, and the Kingdom had been left to their youngest child, another daughter who was soon fated to embark on an epic quest to rescue her six older brothers from an evil ogre. But that was another story, far away and a little later, and their older sister remained in her grand mausoleum. So it came to pass that the falcon of a local King who was out hunting in those parts--which had recently been annexed by his Kingdom--flew into a window of the Palace. When the bird didn't return when called back, the King sent one of his lower servants to knock at the house, thinking that such a grand house could not simply have been abandoned. Of course no one answered, so in good time the King sent that same servant to search for a fruit-picker's ladder, so that he might climb in and search the house for any abandoned treasure, and possibly get his bird while he was at it.

He climbed the distance up and went in, and searched for a long while, stopping every so often to exclaim at the beauty of the young woman who appeared in so many portraits. Finally he came to the room in which Talia sat, eyes closed as if asleep.

The King called to Talia, thinking her a strange fairy asleep, but since nothing he did could wake her, and since he thought her so beautiful, _and _since he was a King, he dragged her over to a nearby couch and had his way with her. The details shall be spared here, but suffice it to say that he was not careful with his seed, and since Talia unknowingly had a set of seven nieces and nephews _and _seven younger sisters and brothers, it only took the third time of his taking her to impregnate poor Talia.

Having sated his lust in the comatose girl, the King left her lying there in the dust and stale mouse-droppings, and returned to his own Kingdom. For a long, long time he entirely forgot the affair. Nine months later, Talia gave birth to twins, both of whom were pretty as pearls. One, in its search for a nipple to suck for food, nosed its way up Talia's side, and it at once mistook the very finger that had been broken for a nipple and began sucking. In its hunger it sucked so hard that the broken bone straightened itself, and Talia was roused as though she had only been sleeping.

When she saw the babes at her side she was rightfully astonished at its presence, for she did not feel the pain of her nine months agone encounter with the King, and somehow she also did not feel the aftereffects of childbirth. She could not understand what had happened, such as the whereabouts of her parents and why the palace was abandoned and how she was suddenly inside, but since she found food aplenty in the overgrown gardens outside and plenty of dried foodstuffs in the cellars below the palace, she was content to live there and try to raise her child, and perhaps when the children ere grown a little she would send for help. But for now she was filled with a sleepy contentment, and as far as the babes were concerned that was all that mattered. She named the babes Star and Tide, and hoped that one day both boys would each grow enough to make his own way in the wide world outside.

But soon a hard winter's frost wiped out most of the wild gardens outside her door, and Talia was forced to abandon her home and bring her children in search of shelter. It wasn't long before they came to the winter home of the King and Queen of the land, and it also wasn't long before the King realized who Talia was. The Queen was out hunting, and he immediately realized what he needed to do.

Adultery was punishable by death in that kingdom, so immediately the King ordered the "crazy beggar woman" and her childred put to death by flame. First Talia was made to strip for the King, who howled in lust at every piece of clothing that Talia pulled off at crossbow-point. But it was her complaining and beratings of the King that saved her life, for as slowly as she pulled off each item of clothing, the Queen had time to return from her hunt, see the commotion, and ask the cause.

Now, before I go any further I should probably explain the situation in the King's own home. The King, and his Queen who was more of a King than she was a Queen, had an understanding that they were joint rulers, and that she was in no way subservient to him nor would she do "womanly" things like embroidery, cleaning, and cooking, of even lie with him. He was free to have his run with any woman that would have him, but she would not and never would be one of them. They did not even sleep in the same bed nor share the same rooms. He had grudgingly agreed to these standards put forth by a woman who was more like a man than she was a woman, and they had ruled in semi-peace for several years.

When she first saw the woman, the Queen--whose name was Lynn--knew instinctively what had happened. She had always known that her co-ruler had itchy fingers, and when he explained how he had _originally _found Talia, the Queen's blood boiled as she figured out what had happened. _He _said that the childred must have wandered in from he knew not where, but one look at the similarities between the younglings' features and the King's left no doubt in Queen Lynn's mind.

She tapped the King on the shoulder, and when he turned she smashed him in the face with the pommel of her sword. When he staggered back, holding his smashed cheek, she yelled for the guards holding the woman and children to stop.

They stepped back and released the flame-haired woman and watched as the Queen hamstrung the King with one swift stroke of her sword, and kicked him onto the edges of the fire. When she turned to Talia, the Princess was clutching her children to her chest and weeping, imagining sure death for "seducing" the King.

The Queen, intending nothing of the sort, ran her hand through her short brown hair and surveyed the girl in front of her. What was she to do with her? She cleaned her sword on the still-twitching leg of the King--the only part of him not aflame--and sheathed it.

Talia didn't flinch when Lynn approached her with her hands open and down at her sides, but then again the King had probably approached her the same way. She held Star and Tide closer, and braced herself for the gripping hands that would surely pitch her onto the bonfire.

Instead, gentle, calloused hands rested themselves on Talia's shoulders.

Talia looked up into the green eyes of the Queen, who smiled very gently, and said in a husky voice, "Don't worry. I know what he has done, and I do _not_ condone it." Her eyes hardened into green steel, then softened. "You are safe here."


	2. Winter's Kiss

Within months, Talia was growing comfortable at the Queen's winter hunting lodge. She had her own room, which she shared with Star and Tide, and she herself was gaining weight. Not from pregnancy, but from having enough to eat. She could not longer count her own ribs in a room with no light but that of the dim crescent moon, and Star and Tide were growing to the size that boys their age should be. Talia's breasts no longer hung flat against her chest as they had been since she'd stopped nursing, but they were rounder and fuller, and her hips were rounding again, too. She would take long walks around the lodge to stretch her legs in the snow, and the Queen--Lynn, she corrected herself--would often join her.

On a night when she couldn't sleep, she left Star and Tide in their room and went to walk about the outer porch that ringed the huge lodge. Barely past the second corner, she spotted an argent figure outlined in moonlight reflecting off of the snow. She knew that it was Lynn without a doubt, and as she drew near the woman looked up.

"Talia," she said with a smile hovering around her lips. "What are you doing awake at this hour?"

"I think I spent too much time asleep," Talia said.

Lynn chuckled. "I can understand that. Sometimes when you're the Queen they let you sleep too much and then you're awake for the entire next night."

"Is that what happened tonight?" Talia ventured.

"No, I was just. . . pondering some things," Lynn said.

"Might I ask what?"

"You might," said the Queen. She sounded uncertain, and in the dim light Talia thought she looked a little nervous.

Talia leaned on the rails, gazing out over the snow. The trees seemed nearer at night, and much bigger and darker. If she looked carefully she could see the careful movements of raccoons coming to pick at the day's waste.

"What are you pondering?"

"Certain situations," said the Queen.

"Such as?"

"You," Lynn said without preamble.

Talia pushed away from the rail. "Me?" she asked. Would they be turned out now?

"Yes, you," said Lynn. "Viktor did make a good choice when he chose you, but as for what he left you with--" she gestured back into the lodge. "--I cannot say. It is not your sons I dislike, rather the knowledge of what Jacob did to beget them upon you."

"It does not bother me," said Talia. Truthfully it did not; she had no recollection of the rape, nothing to remember, and her body never reminded her.

"I know it doesn't, but whenever I look at you, whenever I think about you, I see him and remember what he did."

"Why?"

"Because every time I see you I want nothing more than to do this," Lynn said, and placed her hand atop Talia's on the rail. She squeezed gently. "It is difficult, knowing that I would have been able to stop what he did had I gone hunting that day."

Talia half-smiled. "But then you would not have met me," she said.

"I know," said the Queen.

#

Late one morning Talia found herself waist-deep in a drift that she hadn't seen coming, and she barely had time to comprehend what she'd floundered into before a hand plunged into the snow at her back, grabbed her belt, and yanked her up out of the snow and onto more solid land. Talia turned in the snow that now only up to her knees, and found herself nose-to-chin with Lynn. The other woman's face was covered in blood, and she was holding a clump of snow over one brow with the hand that wasn't still holding Talia's belt.

"What happened?" Talia gasped, but Lynn was already dragging them both back towards the lodge.

"Bandits," the Queen said shortly, pressing the bloody snow against her face.

A wild war whoop cut through the trees, and Lynn dropped both of them into a snowbank, covering the hole they'd made with her white cloak. While they crouched as low as they could, Talia heard footsteps crunch over the snow. It was so cold with the snow on all sides, and Lynn was the only warm thing there with her. Talia pressed closer, hoping that the slightest shifting of snow wouldn't give them away.

"Nothing?" she heard a man ask roughly.

"Naw," another male voice answered. "Musta gotten away."

"Damn," the first said.

"We'll head for the building then. They'll have holed up in there."

_My sons!_ Talia thought, and as if Lynn knew what Talia were thinking, slipped her finger over Talia's mouth.

The footsteps crunched away, and Lynn kept her finger to Talia's lips for a long while after that.

After an indeterminate amount of time, Lynn peeked up from under the cloak, and then threw it up. Talia pulled herself away from the snow, wincing when she realized that her clothes were frozen to it in some places.

They crawled out of the snowdrift, and Talia started chafing her arms while Lynn wiped new blood off of her face. The Queen dropped her white cloak around Talia's thin shoulders. "I know it's cold," she said, "but it will warm up quickly."

She started leading them through the trees back towards the lodge.

"Are we just going to go back there?" Talia asked, struggling through the snow to keep up with the taller woman.

"Yes," said the Queen. "There is an outbuilding which has a tunnel that leads directly into my chamber inside the lodge."

"Won't they be waiting for us?"

Lynn smiled thinly. "Don't think that my servants aren't skilled in war. This isn't the first time we've had to fight off men trying to start a coup."

Talia nodded. Her mind was whirling with the intelligence and foresight of this Queen. "Who tried to start a coup?" she asked.

"The King's younger brother, Wilhelm," Lynn said. "His plan was to surround myself and my servants while we were on pilgrimage to a local nunnery and kill me, and do I know not what with his brother, but he failed miserably."

"How so?"

"I killed Wilhelm within three minutes of the skirmish's start, and when he was dead his men fell apart. Honestly, I think what kept Jacob in check all those years was seeing Wilhelm's pickled head in a barrel."

Talia felt faint, but remembered that this was the Queen who had saved her life and killed an unjust King. Some things were necessary in war, as she remembered her own parents telling her years ago.

She clung to the hope that her sons would be alright, and she followed Lynn until they stumbled into a clearing, at one end of which was a dark, very low building that looked more like an outhouse than anything else. The Queen produced a key from one pocket and unlocked it, and together they went inside. Under a rug on the floor, Lynn revealed a hidden trap-door that blended so well with the floor, that Talia thought that the rug wasn't even needed to conceal it.

They climbed down into the tunnel that was revealed, and for some time they wandered down a tunnel that was lightless but for the single candle that Lynn held, and it seemed to go on for miles. The only changing thing was the distance between the supports that kept the tunnel from collapsing, and the skittering of mice that had made the tunnel their home. After what seemed like far too long in the earth, Lynn grabbed Talia's hand and snuffed the candle.

"Hush," she said. She pulled Talia's hand to what felt like a ladder on the wall and left her hand there. "Wait."

Talia felt Lynn climbing the ladder, and above them and far to the right there was a scratching noise.

Slowly, a scraping noise was heard, and then an anxious faces appeared in a frame of light above them. "Majesty?" she whispered.

"Yes," Lynn whispered back. "Is it safe?"

"It is," said the servant, opening the door above them wider.

Lynn pulled herself up, then turned around and reached down for Talia.

"Isn't that dangerous?" Talia asked. "If you scratch and the bandits are right there, they'll know someone is under the floor."

"Not quite," said the Queen. She showed Talia a string that hung on the ground side of the door. "When I pull this, it turns a little wheel in the wall across the room that makes the scratching noise, so even if the room is taken over, whoever is in it will think the noise is just a mouse in the wall."

Again Talia found herself amazed at Lynn's ingenuity, and grasped her hand. "You're wonderful," she said quickly, then let go.

Inside the Queen's chambers they were alone. The servant had left, presumably to tell the rest of those who dwelt in the lodge that that the Queen had returned with her guest.

In the light of the room, lit by many candles in wall-sconces and lanterns, Talia saw the true depth of Lynn's wound. It was a deep, cutting slash to her brow, one that might have come from being struck across the face with the back of a plate-gloved hand or a club. The snow had melted entirely, leaving clotted blood and blood-dirtied water smeared across one half of the Queen's face.

Even as Talia looked at it, Lynn seemed to remember the gash and crossed the room to examine her face in the mirror. Talia winced as she prodded at it with expert fingers, pulling at it a little to produce fresh blood. She cleaned it with a cloth soaked in water from the washing-bowl on the same table, and the blood from her face streaked the rag in dark pinks and reds before she was done.

When the rag was laid down on the table, Lynn's face was bare of blood but for the cut over her eye that seeped blood anew, and for the black eye below it. The skin around the gash was purpling, and her short brown hair remained a little dark and matted from dried blood, but Talia supposed that it couldn't be helped.

"It will scar a little," Lynn finally pronounced. She smiled a little. "I think it looks rather dashing, don't you?"

Talia found herself tongue-tied. What could she say to that?

"When I was younger I always wanted a few well-placed, attractive scars about my face to show my courage and experience, and when I finally got them the people I wanted to notice them were entirely absent, and now that I've got the one major scar I always wanted as a youngster, it just doesn't seem to matter anymore."

"Why is that?"

"Because the people who matter already do care about it," Lynn said. Her reflection fixed Talia with a steady look.

Talia wanted to step back from the look in those reflected brown eyes, wanted to turn and run from the heat she saw in them, but her feet seemed rooted to the floor.

"I . . ." she began, and trailed off. What would she say? What _could _she say?

Lynn rose from bending over the table with the mirror on it, and turned. "Talia," she said. "I know this isn't the best time, but it's time that you understand that you matterto me. You matter to me as a person, and you matter to me as a woman. And you attract me as a woman." Here she stuttered a little. "You attract me like I've never been attracted to anyone before."

"But I am just a--" _common outdated Princess_, Talia meant to say, but Lynn interrupted her.

"Strong, danger-seeking, sweet, gentle young woman," Lynn said. "And a very beautiful one."

While Talia remained rooted to the floor, Lynn took several steps across the room, stopping near her but not quite touching her.

"I would like to be more than just the woman who killed her husband for you," Lynn said. "I would like to be your friend, your confidante, and someone who your children can look up to. I want . . . I want to be _yours_."


	3. Keys

Talia found herself lost for words.

"Talia?" Lynn said, sounding uncertain. "I--er--"

The former Princess stared at the lost-looking Queen before her. "My Queen, what you ask of me is a little . . ." here she paused, wondering what word could make sense of this muddle. "Profound," she finally said. "And a little frightening."

"Frightening?" Lynn said, sounding heartsick.

"No," Talia said quickly, "not _frightening_, really, but this whole situation makes me a little nervous, like there is a trapped bird in my stomach and all it can do to express itself is to flutter its feathers along the inside of me."

Lynn relaxed minutely, and finally turned around on her stool. "Talia, I don't want to make you frightened, and I certainly don't want to make you nervous, especially around me. I just wanted you to know how I felt, so just--" Lynn sighed. "If you felt the same way, you might--_know_ that I am here."

"When we first met," Talia said slowly, "I _was_ a little terrified of you. You're as tall as a man, and as strong, and you hunt and rule and do all the things that a King does, and you were so _just_! I thought you might despise me for being so weak, and more feminine than you, and having two _children_ that I need to take care of."

"I could never despise you," Lynn said. "There is naught in you that is despisable, and naught on your outside, either." She rose from the chair and looked Talia in the eyes. "I care deeply for you Talia, and I want only the best for you and your children."

"I know," Talia said. The bird in her stomach and the pounding of her heart were making her dizzy, and Lynn was rapidly becoming the only thing that she could see, as though Lynn was the light at the end of a tunnel.

Lynn's eyes, usually sharp and brown, softened a little with what might have been tears. "Then I will--"

"Stay," Talia said, and she flung her arms round Lynn's neck and kissed her. Lynn's arms closed around Talia's shoulders and waist and drew her up close. No one else was in the room, and though there was a tense standoff going on outside, no one came to bother them. The kiss went on for a long time, til finally there was a knock at the door.

"My Queen, the brigands wish to make parlay," someone called.

Lynn's mouth tore away from Talia's and she walked to the door.

"Tell them that I shall accept nothing but their surrender, and we are well-prepared for a siege," she said. Lynn then went to a chest at the foot of the bed and began pulling out armor. "Talia, will you help me?" she asked.

Though unused to the task, Talia found herself easily able to assist Lynn with donning her heavy armor, and within minutes the Queen was suited up in very serviceable, somewhat used armor.

Then Talia found herself being pressed into a lighter suit of similar armor, and she was given a light bow and a heavy quiver of arrows and a long knife.

Star and Tide were hidden away somewhere in the lodge, well-defended by heavily armed servants, and with them safe, Lynn and Talia went out onto the porch to face the bandits.

The air was tense and thick, and the main body of the brigands was well-concealed behind trees. Only a few remained in the open to call for, but any calling was unnecessary. As soon as Lynn emerged, one man, older and graying, stepped forth.

"We are seeking the body of a cursed Princess," said the man. "The farmers round the Palace said that the King of the next country over had been the only one to enter the place."

"The Princess Talia?"

"She is here?" asked the brigand.

"She is indeed," Lynn said, pointing at Talia. "Alive and well."

Talia stepped forward and was met with horrified stares.

"Necromancy!" one of the concealed brigands shouted.

"There is no sorcery here," Lynn shouted. "There is nothing but the ending of a curse, brought about by the sons that the King fathered upon the Princess."

There were shouts of outrage among the brigands, and one young man fitted an arrow to his bow.

"Let it speak, if it is not a necromancied corpse!" declared the brigand who had spoken the most.

"I am indeed the Princess Talia," Talia said clearly and loudly. "But I am a Princess no longer."

"What about the children?" one brigand yelled.

"The King of this country forced himself upon my body when I did not know of his presence, and fathered children upon me," Talia said. "They ended the curse upon me, and eventually I came to the Queen of this country, and when she discovered what had happened with the King, she executed him and I have been here ever since."

"She executed him?" The main brigand asked.

"I do not condone rape in my Kingdom," Lynn said. "Even the King is not above punishment, and he was about to put this woman and her children to death, and it was luck that I arrived in time to stop the horrible situation."

Murmuring came from the forest, and the brigand with the strung arrow lowered his bow.

"If you are truly the Princess, of what nature was the curse that was laid upon you?" he called.

"I was never told of it," Talia said, "but I know it had something to do with my ring finger, for the last thing I remember before waking up was falling off of the odd animal in my father's stable, with my hands held out before me to catch myself, and when I woke up the ring finger on my left hand hurt abominably."

The older brigand's face suddenly grew more tired. "And the way the heralds described you to the country?"

Talia sighed. "They proclaimed that I was a child as orange as flame, pink as the pinkest rose, and as dark as driftwood, which is to say, not very."

Before Talia could say another word, the brigand was on one knee, and the others were following suit.

"Princess Talia, we are in fact a group of loyal soldiers sent to retrieve your body and kill the man who stole it. We come from the court of your niece, Princess Lisset of Gisbourne, to fetch you back for her."

Talia paled. "I have a niece?"

"And nephews," the soldier said. "Six of them."

_And _nephews. A niece and six nephews.

"Are they . . . well?"

"Curses seem to run in the family, Princess," the soldier said. "Your nephews have been living as ravens for several years."

Lynn's hand crept around Talia's, giving her some strength.

"Must I come back with you?" she asked.

"You could give us a token," the soldier suggested.

What token? She thought desperately.

"Your niece requires a key to enter the glass mountain where her brothers live," the soldier said hesitatingly. "It is of an odd nature, and her fingers are too torn and ruined from an earlier attempt at a rescue to work."

"Fingers?"

"The key is a finger," he said. "But it must be the finger of a blood relation to the brothers, else the mountain will lock forever, keeping the six raven brothers inside."

Talia looked down at her hands. "I--" she said. "My finger is a little crooked, but it may well work."

Lynn's hand seized within her own, and Talia gripped it tightly before pulling her hand out. She held her left hand before her, then knelt on the wood of the porch, splaying her fingers before her with the littlest finger tucked under her palm.

She seized the knife that Lynn had given her, raising it high over her head, gripping it with a strength she did not know she had had.

And she brought it down, down, down at the base of her finger, into the finger that had started it all with the curse, and severed it completely.

For a moment she felt nothing but an odd lightening of her spirit--and then the pain struck. It was like nothing she had ever felt before, and she could not keep a cry from escaping her lips. Blood was everywhere, shockingly red against what snow was left on the porch.

Talia did not faint, which might have been a mercy, but she sagged against Lynn, who held her tight until a servant came with a poker still red-hot from a fire. And then she held Talia tighter, held her through the white-hot pain that took all feeling away, and dwarfed the pain from her severed finger completely.

Dimly she remembered picking up the severed, bloody finger with her other hand, and shoving it through the thin ice of a water-barrel into the shockingly cold water within, and bringing out the white, slightly crooked finger of a Princess. There was still a little blood in the crevices of her knuckles, and deep in the cuticles, but she handed it to the soldier anyway.

"My token," she gasped out, before Lynn and her servants hustled Talia away to be treated.

#

The soldiers had gone back to Talia's niece, carrying their grim token, when Lynn knocked at the door.

"How are you feeling?"

Talia held up a four-fingered hand. "I have felt better, but for now I am doing as well as I can."

Lynn nodded, and strode into the room, dropping down onto a stool beside Talia's plush chair. They say silently beside the fire, close enough to be warmed inside and out as though in a hot bath, but no more than that.

"Star and Tide are put to bed," Lynn said softly.

Talia smiled. Her sons had barely noticed her missing finger, and were full of stories about the nice servants who had watched over them that morning and afternoon.

Lynn slid off of her stool and onto the floor at Talia's feet. She rested against Talia's legs, and Talia slid her uninjured hand down to rest in Lynn's hair.

The warmth made them both somnolent, and as they drowsed Talia thought dreamily about the day.

The fire crackled and popped, sending a few sparks out onto the hearth where they took some time to die, and as Talia watched them glow and fade, the Queen's hand crept up to hold hers.

"Will you marry me?" Lynn asked.

"Do you love my sons?" Talia asked.

"Oh, yes."

Talia said in a rush, to the crown of brown hair below her, "I love you, and I want to marry you."

Lynn squeezed her hand, and Talia knew that everything was exactly as it should be.


End file.
